Harvard student trapped in Egypt, mourns friend killed

Jul. 3, 2013
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Michelle Hu, 21, of Carmel, Ind., is shown with Andrew Pochter, a good friend, who was killed last week in Egypt. Hu is currently in Egypt watching the events of history unfold from her room. / Courtesy of Michelle Hu

by Clara Ritger, The Indianapolis Star

by Clara Ritger, The Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS -- Michelle Hu lives on an island on the Nile River, two miles from where violent protests are unfolding in Egypt's Tahrir Square.

It's an island that, for now, has made the 21-year-old government student at Harvard an unintended prisoner, afraid to venture out as protesters clash over the removal of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

The tumult has hit her hard, too.

She was messaging her close friend Andrew Pochter, 21, when she heard about an American who was killed in Alexandria on June 28. She wrote she was glad she didn't goto Alexandria and that she was worried about him.

"I didn't receive a response," Hu, a Carmel High School graduate, told The Indianapolis Star in an exclusive interview by email.

Then someone informed her, the American who was stabbed by a protester and later died at a military hospital was Pochter.

"It's so tragic that some crazy people singled him out for who he was, without knowing the love and passion he had for their country and culture," she said.

Hu said she thinks Pochter was singled out because he was not Egyptian. She said it's safer for her to go out with a scarf and sunglasses on because it makes her appear local. Sometimes, she said, the protests can turn anti-American because the United States had supported Morsi.

Morsi refused to abdicate. He was elected president after Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak was deposed in 2012.

Reports late Wednesday indicated that Morsi was taken into military custody.

Some protesters were already celebrating earlier that day. Hu said she witnessed military helicopters flying with Egyptian flags over Tahrir Square and could hear cars honking. In the distance, she said she saw fireworks light up the sky.

Hu and Pochter, of Chevy Chase, Md., became friends on a 2010 trip to Morocco, after bonding over their mutual love of Middle Eastern culture.

She arrived in Egypt on June 26, two days before Pochter was killed. She is an intern for Microsoft Egypt and lives in an island region called Zamalek, which is between Cairo and Giza on the Nile. She described her area as safe for her to walk around freely.

Venturing across the river to see the protests, however, is a risk she's not planning to take, not after what happened to Pochter.

"When I found out about Andrew, I stopped leaving the immediate area of my apartment," said Hu, who plans to remain in Egypt until the end of August. "I could never make my family and friends feel the same way that I feel now about Andrew."

Hu's parents, who still live in Carmel, declined to be interviewed, but Hu said they have told her they are worried about her safety. Friends have posted on her Facebook page, wishing her well.

She said she thinks things will calm down in the coming days, as people go home to be with their families for Ramadan, a monthlong holiday observed by Muslims that begins Tuesday.

From talking to Egyptians, she characterized them as ecstatic. They see the leadership change, she said, as the next step in reforming and improving their democracy.

"They were concerned about the path Egypt was going down -- especially the inability of the government to protect minorities' rights and the freedom of speech," Hu said. "They didn't expect the economy to be fixed within a single year, but for democratic values to be upheld."